LaVar Ball said wife had stroke &apos;so she can be quiet&apos;

LaVar Ball has attracted notoriety for the outlandish remarks he’s made while navigating the basketball careers of his sons, Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo.

He has one son in the NBA, an apparel brand, a successful reality show and a less successful pro basketball league. But last year, near tragedy hit the Ball family when LaVar’s wife, Tina, suffered a major stroke.

For much of the past year, the Ball family had been reluctant to provide details on Tina’s stroke and her road to recovery. She was featured in the reality show Ball in the Family, but a recent feature from The Washington Post shed more light on how Tina has been treated by her husband since suffering the stroke in February of 2017.

Tina defied odds in regaining the ability walk. She has been left with aphasia, which limits the stroke victims’ verbal communication. According to The Post, LaVar has treated Tina’s condition as a weakness, making her ditch a wheelchair so it doesn’t leave marks in their house.

If, on the other side of the planet, Tina is recovering with puzzles and daily repetition, LaVar believes in a different approach. He says it was initially his idea to prohibit Tina from using a wheelchair, not explicitly as a challenge but because, he says, Tina would be “tearing up our house.”

Rather than slow his gait when they’d go to lunch in Chino Hills, he’d point out she’s “moving like an old-ass lady” because she uses a cane or advise Tina to “put your damn foot forward and walk!”

“Keep moving slow; I’m gonna be inside with the AC blowing,” he now recalls telling her. “[Shoot], I’m not waiting all day for you to walk across the street; you better get to moving.”

The article also pointed to a visit that Tina made to Lithuania where LaVar would have her conduct Ball in the Family interviews immediately after a full 24 hours of traveling. He would say that Tina suffered her stroke so she could be quiet.

In his suite on this afternoon, during an interview he insists is recorded, LaVar sidesteps questions that would humanize him and offsets the occasional tender moment about his wife – “As long as she can smile, give a kiss and a hug,” he says, “I’m good” – with striking displays of cruelty – “That’s probably why she had the stroke, so she can be quiet for a minute.”

You can read the full story here.

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